| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: in the midst of the greatest change that could take place
in her life, they were uppermost also in Miss Tita's mind.
My servant came down and spoke to me; he knew nothing save
that the doctor had gone after a visit of half an hour.
If he had stayed half an hour then Miss Bordereau was still alive:
it could not have taken so much time as that to enunciate
the contrary. I sent the man out of the house; there were moments
when the sense of his curiosity annoyed me, and this was one of them.
HE had been watching my cigar tip from an upper window,
if Miss Tita had not; he could not know what I was after and I
could not tell him, though I was conscious he had fantastic
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in.
The boy gave a loud, high shriek, which, lost in the rest
of the shock of sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I
was so close to him, a note either of jubilation or of terror.
I jumped to my feet again and was conscious of darkness.
So for a moment we remained, while I stared about me and saw
that the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window tight.
"Why, the candle's out!" I then cried.
"It was I who blew it, dear!" said Miles.
XVIII
The next day, after lessons, Mrs. Grose found a moment to say to me quietly:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: stronger.
The difference in the conduct of the two was remarkable. The
Devonian was as willing as any paid hand, swarmed aloft among the
first, pulled his natural weight and firmly upon a rope, and found
work for himself when there was none to show him. Alick, on the
other hand, was not only a skulker in the brain, but took a humorous
and fine gentlemanly view of the transaction. He would speak to me
by the hour in ostentatious idleness; and only if the bo's'un or a
mate came by, fell-to languidly for just the necessary time till they
were out of sight. 'I'm not breaking my heart with it,' he remarked.
Once there was a hatch to be opened near where he was stationed; he
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